To get to the point straightaway, the air conditioning in the petrol version of the car is not powerful enough.
If you stay in the some of the hot places in the country, the AC unit will struggle to cool the car. For example, I stay in the central / northern parts of the country where the maximum temperatures can go above 45 degrees Centigrade. If I go out while it is still sunny in the afternoon and set the automatic climate control to 21, the fans of the AC run at full speed trying to combat the heat.
Needless to say that running at full speed, the air conditioning gets noisy. So almost all the time I have to take over manually from the automatic climate control and lower the fan speed a bit.
Two things, I would like to point out. First of all I set the temperature to 21 and not 24 because if I set it at 24, the fans really slow down while it’s still pretty hot in the car. You do need to bast the AC at full speed if you want any cooling happening in the peak heat hours of the afternoon. Secondly, the automatic climate control is not very accurate that way. It controls the fan speed according to the temperature you set and it pretty much gets it wrong most of the time. It is best set it the old fashioned way.
Set it on 19 or 21 in the summers so that it gives the coolest air without mixing any hot air from the engine and then adjust the fan speed as you desire. This is what provides the maximum comfort.
Once the weather begins to cool, i.e. the monsoons arrive, the AC has no problems keeping the car cool and I find myself running the fan speed at minimum or just one notch more.
I feel that the HVAC unit struggles in the CIAZ because of the amount of heat that the car seems to absorb. It is a pretty big car so more metal and the glass area is huge, more than most other sedans in the same class. I have realised that the car gets hot from inside even while standing under shade.
Anyway, the result is that the AC needs to be made more powerful in the petrol unit of the CIAZ. I cannot comment if the AC unit of the diesel variant is the same. Sometimes they are more powerful. Another thing I will try for the next summer is, after consulting with the service centre people, I will top up the gas in the compressor. This had happened with my earlier car. After getting refilled with AC gas, the cooling increased noticeably. I concluded that the car had been filled with some more gas than it had come filled with originally. I will try this with the CIAZ, see if it makes and a difference and post an update here.
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